


The Hesitant Dead

by liodain



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Resurrection, Rituals, Rivalry, The Three Rs:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29696295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liodain/pseuds/liodain
Summary: Inside, it was as dark as sin.
Relationships: Knight with Necromantic Powers/His Deceased Arch-Rival He Raised from the Dead
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	The Hesitant Dead

**Author's Note:**

> A meme ficlet as usual, even if the original work is out of left field for me! Written for the prompt: [100 words of an original works pairing that's been nominated for an exchange](https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/385611.html?thread=2264260939#cmt2264260939), and which I forgot about it until I saw the pairing nommed for O5k. Which I am just browsing. Window shopping, you know. /sits on hands

The moon hung gravid in the bitter cold sky, illuminating Roerin Kost's way through the graveyard and to the mausoleum that loomed on the hillside beyond. His horse was lathered from two days hard ride and nervous among the tombstones. He left her untethered; she wouldn't wander far from the mausoleum gates, and now that he was here, Roerin could not bring himself to waste even a moment.

Inside, it was as dark as sin. He spared a shred of magic for some witchlight. It diffused through the mausoleum, just barely enough to see by. Tiel Lecuyer's casket was set in the centre of the floor. Visitation was two days and two nights for one of his station—always the King's favoured. At first light, he would be sealed into the catacombs below. 

Roerin pulled off his gauntlets and set them to the floor. He had lost his helm on his travel here; he knew not when. Perhaps he had left without it. His skin prickled as sweat cooled on his face. 

The casket was smooth under his fingers, cold as the night air and heavy when he opened it. Lecuyer lay within, a soft shape wrapped in a burial shroud. Roerin stood for a long moment, and then drew his belt-knife. The sound of the cloth being sliced away was as loud as his breathing, as loud as his terrible heart.

Lecuyer's skin was bone-white, his dark hair laid in waves over his shoulders. His breast was rent with a grievous wound. He looked at peace. It would not do.

"No scowl for me, Tiel?" Roerin said. His voice was choked. The flat echoes in this place made him hear it again and again, and so he turned to his task in a frenzy. Lecuyer fought him even in death, as stiff and unaccommodating as he had been in life, but Roerin managed to turn his hands palm-up. In one he placed a candle-clock. In the other, a brass hand bell.

A silver key he placed in the hollow of Lecuyer's throat, to open his body to his soul. He pushed his thumb between his lips and laid a platinum coin on his tongue. Death escorted a soul to rest for a mere copper. Their return was more costly.

Finally, Roerin took his knife to his thumb and pricked it. Blood welled up, black in the mausoleum light, and Roerin held it to Lecuyer's mouth until it beaded on his pallid lip.

He stepped back and beheld the tableau he had created. Everything about it was vile. Lecuyer would be disgusted. Kost, he would moan, you wretch of a man. Why have you done this?

And Roerin would not have an answer to that.

He lit the candle and stood at the foot of the casket. He found a blessing in the annals of his memory, an invocation for forgiveness. He recited it as though that would ameliorate any of this, and then he began.

The words flowed through him as though he were in a trance; ugly words not made for mortal tongue, read in a book not intended for mortal eyes, one that Roerin should have soaked in holy water and destroyed as he'd been charged to do.

The candle burned low and guttered out. The bell tolled, muted by Lecuyer's hand, and his chest rose with his first breath. He woke slowly—not the frantic convulsion of a man casting off a nightmare, but as though rousing from a pleasant dream.

No, Roerin thought, as Lecuyer licked his blood from his lips. The stutter of his heart told him this nightmare was only about to begin.


End file.
